Notes on the Indians of Guiana

F

2379

.134

1879

no.2

NMAI

F

2379

.134

1879

no.2

NMAI

NOTES

ON THE

'^•N 0 5 2001

No. 2.— INDIAN ANTIQUITIES.

Charles Waterton in his classic "Wan
d«rings in Sonth America" wrote, " I could
find no monuments or marks of antiquity
amongst these Indians ; so that after pene-
trating to the Eio Branco from the shores
©f the Western Ocean, had anybody ques-
tioned me on this subject, I should have
answerfd, I have sren nothing amongst
these Indians which tells me that they have
existed here for a century; though, for
angbt I know to the contrary, they may
have been here before the redemption, but
their total want of civilization has assimi-
lated them to the forests in which they
wander. Thus an aged tree falls and moul-
ders into dust, and you cannot tell what
was its appearance, its beauties, or its
diseases amongst the neighbouring trees ;
another has shot up in its place, and after
nature has had her course, it will ma1<e way
for a successor in its turn. So it is with
the Indian of Guiana ; he is now laid low in
the dust ; ho has left no record behind him,
either on parchment, or on stone, or in ear-
thenware to say what he has done- . . .
All that you can say is, the trees where I
stand appear lower and smaller than the
rest, and from this I conjecture, that some
Indians may have had a settlement here
formerly. Were I by chance to meet the
son of the father who moulders here, he
could tell me that his father was famous for
slaying tigers and serpents and cay men, and
noted in the chase of the tapir and wild
boar, but that he remembers little or nothing
of hisjgrandfather."

* Even from the first two notes of this series it
■will be apparent that the various subjects do not
follow each other in any sequence but that of
convenience. Each note will, however, as far as
possible deal with a distinct subject.

The above passage is only true in so far
as it describes the ignorance of the
Indian as to his own fore-runners and
their real history. In the half century which
has e'apsed since he who wrote these words
wandered through the interi r of ** Deme-
rara" many antiquities have been found in the
country ; enough, indeed, to make it highly
probible that many more remain to be
discovered. Unfortunately those already
known are not enough in number, and
have not been sufficiently studied, to
allow any inference as to the history
and int T-relations of the makers of
such objects to be drawn from them j
and, perhaps yet more unfortunately, even
the lew facts known have been recorded
so fleetingly, and chiefly in such scat-
tered papers, that they are hardly generally
available. An account of all known anti*
quities of British Guiana should therefore
be useful, even if only to those who wish to
look further into such matters. To such it
will show what has already been done, and
will indicate the directious in which further
search should be made.

The antiquities in ihis colony may, for
the sake of convenience, be classed under
five he. ds: (1) Pictured Bocks, (2) Shell-
mounds, (3) Stone Implements, (4) Stand-
ing Stones, (6) Sites of Ancient Villages.
Before dealing with each of these in turn,
it may be as well to state that in no one case
is it as yet poFsib'e certainly to assign any of
these traces of past human life to the people,
or even to the nation which produced
them ; nor will this be possible until mnch
more information has been gathered. With
regard, however, to the pictured rocks and
the shell-mounds, good reason will be shewa

,2

2

for snppoiing that tbe former are not the
work of any tribe now living in this part
of the world, and jet stronger reason for
supposing that the latter are the work of
the Caribisi,

ROCK PICTURES.

The pictured rocks, certainly the most
noteworthy of our antiquities, are — and
this .has, apparently, never yet been pointed
out — not all of one kind. In all cases
figures, presumably of the nature of hiero*
glyphic writings are depicted on larger or
smaller surfaces of rocks. But sometimes
these figures are painted, though such
cases are few and, as will be shewn, of
little moment ; sometimes they are en»
graved, and thesa alone are of great im«
portance. Rock-pictures of this latter kind
may again be dis'inguished in^o two classes,
according to the depth of incision, the
apparept mode of execution, and — most
important of all — the character of the
figures represented.

Painted rocks in British Guiana are
mentioned by Mr, C. Barrington Brown,
lata Gtological Surveyor of the eolony.
He says, for instance, that in coming
down past Amailah Fall (in the same
district and range as the Kaieteur) on
tbe Curibrong river, he passed "a large
white sandstone rock ornamented with
figures in red paint-" When in the
Pacarairoa mountains, on tlie Brazilian froa-
tier, I heard of the existence of similar
pain'ings in that neighbourhood, but was
unable to find them. Mr. Wallace in his ac-
count of his *'Tiavels on the Amazons"
mentions the occurrence of similiar drawings
in more han one pUce near the Amazons; and
from other accounts it seems probabe that
they occur in many parts of South America.
If, as seem^ likely, these figures are drawn
with faroah (a red paint very commonly
nsed by the Indians and prepared from the
pulp round the seeds of Bixa orelland)^ or,
as is also possible, with some sort of red
earth, they must be modern, the work of
Indians of the present day. For these redpig*

ments would not long withstand the eflfects
of the weather, especially where, as in
the case quoted from Mr. Brown, the draw-
ings are on such an unenduring substance
as sandstone. Some further accouLt of these
paintings is, however, much to be desired ; for,
even if they are modern, it would be a mat-
ter of much interest to know whether the
designs in any way resemble either those
depicted on the engraved rocks or those
which the Indian at the present time draws,
by way of ornament, on his own skin.

The engraved rocks on the contrary must
be of considerable antiquity ; that is to say
they must almost certainly date from a time
before the tribes now inhabiting British
Guiana came into their present homes. As
has already been said, they are of two kinds,
and are probably the work of two different
people, both now absent from British Guia-
na ; nor is there even any reason to euppose
that the two kinds were produced at oue and
the same time.

These two kinds of engravings may, for the
sake of con venience, be distinguished as "deep'
and " shallow" respectively : according as the
figures are deeply cut into the rock or are
merelv scratched on the surface. The former
vary from one eighth to one half of an inch,
or even more, in depth ; the latter are of qute
inconsiderable depth. This difference pro«
bably points to a difference in the means by
which they were produced. The deep eu-
gravings seem cut ii? to the rock with an
edged tool of some kind ; the shallow figures
wore apparently formed by long continued
friction with stones and moist sand. The
two kinds seem never to occur in the same
place, or even near to each other. The deep
form occurs at several spots on the Hlssequi*
bo, Ireng, Ootinga, and Quitara rivers and,
it is said, on the Berbice river. The shal*
low form has as yet only been reported
from the Corentyne river, where, however,
examples occur in considerable abundance,
but the 1 Wo kinds differ not only in the depth
of incision, in the apparent mode of their
production, and in the plaoe of their occur-

rence, but also -and this is tlie chief differ-
ence between the two— in the figures repre-
sented. This will best be explained by
describing an example of each kind.
The Temehri rock at Wanitoba cata-
racts on the Corentyne is a fine ex»
pie of the latter, or shallow, form; and
the group of rocks at Warrapuia ca aiac s
on the Essequibo bear many fine examples
cf the former, or deep, style. The inscrip-
tions at both these places have been photo-
graphed. The picture on Temehri rock coun
sists of a large single figure or combination
of simple lines, and is of large size. In
common with all the shallow drawings its
outline may be described as a rectangular
figure, of greater height than width, crown-
ed by a semi-circle marked with dis inct
radii. This outline is filled in bv a pattern oi
straight lines. Unlike the outline, this pat-
tern is not always the same as at Temehri,
and is indeed often cGnsiderably varied. The
whole height of the figure at Temehri is 1 3
feet, its greatest width 5 feet 7 inches; but
figures of this sort vary very considerably in
dimensions. The deep drawings, on the other
hand, consist, not of a single figure, but of
a greater or less number ol rude drawings.
These depict the human form, monkies,
snakes and other animals, and also very
limple combinations of two or three straight
or curved lines in a p:^ttern, and occasionally
more elaborate combinations. The individual
figures are small, averaging from 12 to 18
inches in height, but a considerable number
are generally represented in a group.

The nearest, and one of the best, examples
of deep rock-engraving is at Warraputa
Cataracts, about six days journey up the
Essequibo. At that place a large number
of figures occur scattered over the surfaces
of a group of granite boulders in the very
midst of the cataracts. These rocks when the
river is high are covered by water, but the
drawirgs are exposed during the dry season.
The sculptures often occur on several sides of
the same block, but never on the side or
sides which show signs of most recent

fracture. From the fact that they are on
two or even three sides of the blocks, it is
evident that the drawings were not, as might
have been supposed, executed on the face of
a cliff which has since broken up into these
boulders. Often they are on that surface
which now rests on other rocks of the pile;
thus shewing that the blocks are no longer
in the position in which they were when
the drawings were made. Again the fact that
the blocks, all of which are under water
in times of high rains, are many of
them always below water mark except in the
very driest seasons, affords further strong
ground for presuming that the rocks have
been displaced since the sculptures were
executed.

The commonest figures at Warraputa are
figures of men, or perhaps sometimes
monkies. These are very simple, and gene-
rally consist of one straight line, represent-
ing the trunk of the body, crossed by two
straight lines at right angles to the body-
line ; one, at about a third of the distance
from the top, represents the two arms as far
as the elbows, where upward lines represent
the lower part of the arms; the other,
which is at the lower end, represents the
two legs as far as the knees, from which
point downward lines represent the lower
part of the hgs. A round dot, or a small
circle, at the top of the trunk-line forms
the head ; and there are a few radiating
lines where the fingers, a few more where
the toes, should be. Occasionally the trunk-
line is produced downward as if to represent
a long tail. Probably the tail. less figures
represent man, the tailed, monkies. In a
few cases, the trunk, instead of being indi-
cated by one straight line, is formed by two
curved lines, representing the rounded out-
lines of the body; and the body, thus formed,
is bisected by a row of dots, almost invari-
ably nine in number, which seem to repre-
sent vertebrae.

Most of the otler figures at Warraputa are
very simple combinations of two, three, or
four straight lines, similar to the so'called

" Greek pattern,"which is of sach wide-spread
occurrence. Combinations of curved lines
and simple spiral lines also frequently
occ ir. Many of these combinatio is closely
resemble the figures which the Indians
of the present day paint on their faces
and naked bodies. The resemblance is, how-
ever, probably only due to the fact ihut the
figures -are only the simple combinations of
lines which would occur independently to
the rock-engravers and to the body-painters,
as to all other untaught designers.

At Warraputa, thi re are only two ins'anoes
of figures occuring in only a single represen-
tation ; one of thesu is a rayed sun, the other
is the top of a rounded arch. Tne former,
at least, of these figures, occurs frequently in
other pbces. Notat Warraputa, but in many
places on the rivers of the Essequibo system,
and also probably on the Bt rbice, in addi-
tion to the drawings menti n d above,
figures of lizards, alligators, biids or other
animals occur. Sir Robert Sohomburgk
in bis ''Views in the Interior of British
Guiaua" mentions a drawing at Arissaro, a
mountain not far from Warraput i, in which
ships were represented ; but this was pro-
bably not Indian but Dutch, or at any rate,
European work.

The shallow engravings, such as that on the
Temehri rock at VVanitoba cataract, stem
confined to the neighbourhood of the C.'oren*
tyne river. They seem alwajs to occur on
comparatively large ^.nd more or less smooth
surfaces of rock, and never on detached
blocks of rock, piled one on the other. The
figures, too, are generally much larger,
always combinations of s'raight or curved
lines into figures much more elabjrate than
those which occur in the deep pictures. And
these shallow pic ures always represent, not
animals, but greater or less variations of the
same single figure. What this fi^^ure is has
already been describe 1.

One characteristic those two kinds of draw-
ings seem to have in common, in that they
always — or nearly always, for there is said to
be an exception in the Paoaraima mountains

— occur near water, and, as I believe, near a
waterfall or cataraci. There is* inde d
another exception mentioned by Mr. Brown,
in the district of the Cotinga, where he
observed figures of suns, curved snakes,
spirals and circles on a jasperous rock exposed
on a savannah ; but even this was not very
tar from the river.

The many differences seem sufficient
to shosf that the two kinds are the
work of difi'erent people, and have difEjrent
intentions.

No theory as to the origin of either of
these kinds of rock- pictures has ever baen
formed. The Indians of the present day
know nothing about them ; and if they ever
speik of them tell some such story as
that *' women made ttiem," or that they are
the work of Makenaima (God's son), who
when he wandered about on earth drew them
with the point of his finger on the rock ; it is
hardly necessary to point out that the latter
quasi tradition has not even the merit of
antiquity ; for it must have originated aftar
white missionaries came into South America
and there first toJd the story of Christ. If
the Indians at present occupying the dis-
tricts in which these drawings occur were
the descendants of those who produced
these figure?, they would either have some
tradition uf the stone-carvers, or they would
themselves be in the habit of carving similar
figures on stone ; for it is a mistake to
suppose, as Waterton did and others have
done, that Indians have no traditions of the
acts and customs of their forefathers, or
that they do not long retain the customs
and simple acts of their tribe. Night alte^
night, for weeks at a time, I have been
kept awake by the monotonous sound of
fearfully long tales of former Indian deeds
told by firelight in a language unknown to
me. Nor would t be difficult; to show that
the ornaments which the Indian of to-daj
wi ars and the utensils which he uses are,
where not supplanted by articles of Euro-
pean manufacture, of tho same form as
those which the Indians of Qaiaua, at the

time of the discovery of the country, wore
and used.

Some considerable light might be thrown
on the real history of these drawings by a care-
ful comparison of accurate transcripts of those
occurring in Gniana and of those in other
parts of America. Humboldt and Schom-
burgk both supposed that our rock drawings
are merely a part of a widely extended belt of
similar drawings occurring both in North
and South America. Bat it yet remains to
be proved that these figures are really every-
where so similar as to indicate a common
source, and that the rock engravings of
the Americas are not several in origin and
in meaning, as in form. Unfortunately the
means of making a really comprehensive
comparison of this sort have not yet been
brought together. Mr. Wallace during
his travels on the Amazon met with
several examples of these sculptures, but
unfortunately he lost, by fire at sea, nearly
all the drawings which he had made.
Two copies of drawings occurring on the
river Uaupes were, however, published by
him ; and in these the figures correppond
closely with the deep drawings on the rocks
of Guiana. Again in Wilson's " Prehis-
toric Man" is a drawing of an inscription
on the Moro rock in North America,
in which occurs a very simple figure of two
locg lines, close to each other, and crossing
each other again and again at very frequent
regular intervals. The same figure occurs
in more than one place in British Guiana
Of course the design is very simple, and its
occurrence in two such widely separated
places need not indicate even the slightest
connection between the designers ; or, if the
figure represents, as is very likely, the "quip-
pa," the knotted string or notched sti-jk, by
some form of which nearly all unlettered
people have kept and keep an account of days
or numbers, each kind or notch represent,
ing a day or an item, then it is a figure
which is extremely likely <o occur in these
sculptures, which are probably commemora-
tive. Foi instance, let us suppose one of

the simplest examples of commemorative
writing ; a human figure side by side with
one of these knotted airings, might indi«
cate that a certain number — equal to the
number of the knots — of men, did a certain
thing, which thing might be indicated by
some other sign in the same group.

Lastly, before leaving the subject of these
rock pictnres, it may be as well just to refer
to a suggestion which I have heard made,
that they are the work of Indians of the
present day. No one who has seen the
rocks can imagine this for one instant ; and
no one who has lived much among the In*
dians and has questioned them about these
sculptures, can believe that at the present
day the Indians knew anything about these
pictures.

SHELL-MOUNDS.

After the rock»drawings the Shell.mounds
claim a'tention. These are very similar in
structure and contents to those which occur
— and are known as kitchen middens — in
Europe, in Denmark, Norway, the Orkneys
and other places ; but these in South
America were made at a much later time
than were those in Europe. The earUer
stages ot civilization through which a people
passes are much the same in all parts of the
world and at all periods of the wcrld*«
history ; and so, just as our primitive ances-
tors in Europe made kitchen-middens in the
far-off so-called "prehistoric ages," the Indi-
ans were yet making them a very few
centuries ago in South America, and are
possibly — in very remote p irts of the con-
tinent— still making them even now.

A kitchen-midden is a place where the
people of a village or settlement threw the
refuse of that which they eat, — shells of
" shell-fish ",|.on which they chiefly lived,
bones of animals, and other such matter.
Often the fragments of their rnde imple-
ments or weapons, when any of these
are broken, were thrown or fell neg-
lected on to this general refuse heap:
sometimes even whole tools fell on to the
heap by accident and were quickly covered

up and lost. The Indians of Guiana even
now tlirow fish bones a-d all other sharp
fragments which might wound their unco««
vered feet into some definite place ; but no
special place is now long used for the refuse
of a whole settlement, and so no large
collections of refuse, no kitcheu*=middens are
now form.ed, But the old neglected mid-
dens reraain, and by searching into these it
is possible to discover something of what
their makers eat, how they eat it, often
what tools they used, and, generally, not
a little of their way of life.

The shells mounds or k'tchen-miidens of
Guiana occur, with only one known excep-
tion* in the northern, swampy district
which is watered bv the Orinoco and
Pomeroon rivers. This is almost certainly
the part of the mainland which the Caribisi
Indians,! who originall^y lived in the Antilles,
reached in their first voyages t > the main*-
land ; and to them, with good reason the
mounds are generally attributed. If this was
the case, and as the Caribisi were invading
the mainland about the time of the discovery
of Guiana, then these shell-mounds are be-
tween three and four centuries old. The state
of the material of the mounds certainly does
not indicate an earlier date, but rather that
the mounds, though perhaps begun some
four centuries ago, were possibly not finished
till considerably later.

At least five mounds are at present known
in the neighbourhood of the Pomeroon and
one on the Morajbo, a river north of the
Pomeroon, between the Waini and the
Barima. In the latter district the Indians
say, that there are many more, and as
that country is almost unknown, they are
very possibly right. Nearest to the coast

* The exception alluded to is a mound which is
Baid 10 exist at Pin. Skeldcn in Berbice. I should
be veiy grateful for any infoimaticjn as to this
mound, or as to any others additional to those men-
fioned.

f In a fomier nolo I bavf^ tried to point out that
the Caribisi, here often called " Caribs" are really
only a branch tiibeof the Carib family, to v/hich
family belong alco. the Ackawoi, Arccuna, and
^aousi Indians.

is the mound nt Warramuri on the Moruca,
a river which runs into the sea side by
side with the Pomeroon. Further from
the sea, and some distance up the Pomeroon,
two mounds lie close together at Sitiki and
Warrapana. The fourth is at the mission
house at Cabacabouri; and the fifth,
first discovered during my visit to Pomeroon
in December 1S78, is a mile or two further
up, on a creek called Piracca. Two of these,
vhose at Warramuri and Cabacabouri, are
placed on high hills close to, and overlooking
the river. The others are in sec'uded pi ices,
on islands of firm ground in the midst of
troolie palm (Manicaria saccifera) sv^amps.
All, therefore, are in strong defensive posi-
tions, and near running water. The need
of defence against the people of the country,
and of fresh water for their meals, were the
two points which probably chiefiy guided the
( aribisi in choosing sites for their tempo-
rary camps when on their raids on to the
mainland. All the mounds — so far as they
have been examined — are alike in character
and con fonts. They consist chiefly of great
accumulations of a small shell (Neritina
lineolata). In some the more decayed state of
the shells and other refuse seems to indicate
a somewhat greater age.

The mound at Warramuri was first
opened in 1865, under the direction of
the Eev, W. H. Brett, and was again
opened in February 1866, in the pre-
sence of His Excellency Governor Hincks
This mound is from 20 to 25 feet in height
with a diameter of about 130 feet. Like
all the others, it consists almost entirely of a
vast accumulation of one species of snail-like
black and white shells. Among these, but
in far less abundance, were some bivalve
shells (Lucina), together with fragments of
crab she lis, bones of fish and other animals,
and lat-ty — and most important — human
bones. There wf re also some stone axe-heads,
pieces of charcoal, and lumps of a red sub-
stance, apparently a pigment. The mass of
shells evidently lies in more or less distinct
laj«rs betwcm each two of which is «

thin stratam of a hard, apparently burned
substance.

E irly in the following year the mound
at Siriki was measured and opened,
though, I believe, not under the per*
sonal superintendence of an educated
man. 1 his mound, which must be far the
largest known, is said to be oblong, 250
feet long by 90 feet wide, and between 20
aid 25 feet high. Among other human
bones was on6 skull, which though when
found was in twenty seven piecesj was
afterwards fitted together, and provel to be
perfect but for a hole in the top apparently
made by some such implement as a atone
hatchet.

In the mound at Cabacibouri, which was
searched at various times by Mr. Brett, were
found two small silver earrings very similar
to those worn by some of the iSavannah
Indians at the present day. In the autumn
of 1877 I spent some time at Cabacabouri,
and devoted two days to excavating this
mound in a new place. The only
novelties I found were two pin-heads
delicately carved in bone, and some quite
inexplicable red-like bodies of very puz-
zling nature. The only possible e pla-
nation which has occurred to me is that
they are the calcined fore-teeth of deer
or sojie such animal; but this seems Hardly
satisfactory. One new species of shell,
{Purpura coronata) — in a single example — I
found in this mound,

About the same time t' e newly discovered
mound up the Piracca creek was opened in
my presence. It is almost completely circular*
with a diameter of 38 fett and a height,
in the centre, of only 4 feet; as however it
stands on an island of high ground, it rises
considerably above the surrounding swamp.
It is the smallest of the mounds, but
is exac ly similar in structure and con-
tents to the others. One or two imper-
fect stone axes and chis 4s, a go d ojany
ojster shells, a few fragments of a fresh water
shell, common in the river at the present day,
and called by the Indians " Kee-way,''

and a good many human, fish and other
bones, were the most noticeable of the things
embedded in the mass of snail-shells. Great
quantities of sharp edged fragments of
white semi-transparent quartz were also
pres-^nt, as, in smaller quantities, in the
other mounds. Their shape together with
the fact that they are otherwise absent from
the district,- seems to suggest that they may
have been used as knives, for which
purpose they must have been brought from
a distance .

A remarkable feature in all the mounds
is the presence of the burnt clay-like slabs
between the layers of refuse. It has been
suggested that these were used ai baking*
slabs, like the stone-slabs used by some of
the Arecunas, and other remote tribes at
the present day. But this suggestion is
quite untenable. In the first place, these
hard slabs do not occur in small pieces,
unless when broken by the pickaxes and
shovels of excavators, but extend in large
strata-like surfaces throughout the mound ;
and in the second place, they are so irregular
in thickness that bread could only be baked
on them very unevenly. Nor are they
in the least like the baking slabs of the
Indians of the interior, which are very regu-
larly shaped, oblong, and of sandstone. A
much more probable explanation seems to
be that fires ^vere made at intervals — that is,
at each visit of the mound-makers — on the
mounds, and that these " slabs" are merely
the burnt surface of shell and earth on
which the fires rested.

Such are the contents of the mounds, and
an at(empt must now be made to infer from
these something of their history. It may be
as well to state at once that the natural
conclusions are (1) that they were made,
not by ih.Q resident inhabitants of the coun-
try, but by strangers; (2) that thesa strdngers
came from the sea and not from further
inland ; and (3} that these strangers were the
Islands Caribs who afterwards took tribal
form as the Caribisi.

The evidence for the assumption thft^the

motiDd makers were not permanently resident
in the district is to be found in the nature
of the positioLS of these mounds, in their
stratified formation, in the proofs of canni-
balism with which they abound, and in the
character of the stone weapons which occar
in them.

The positions of the mounds seem to show
that they were used only as temporary
camps and not permanent settlements. The
monnds, with the exception of those at
Wnrramuri and Cabacaburi, which are placed
in strong positions on two of the very few
hills in the district, stand in swamps on
islands of firm ground which, while they
might be easily temporarily defended, are far
too small to hold a permanent settlement.
Again the stratified structure of these
mounds, which has already been described,
points to the likelihood that the places were
only temporarily, but repeatedly occupied.
Each layer probably contains the refuse
thrown away during one single visit. And
perhaps most telling of all as regards
the fact that the mounds were made
by strangers, are the large quantities of
human bones which occur mingled with
the refuFe of countless meals. These were
not placed there in the ordinary course of
burial, for not whole skeletons, but only
separate scattered bones are found. The
ikull, already mentioned, on which was the
mark of a murderous blow from some
instrument, confirms this. Moreover these
bones are found at a greater depth than
would be the case if they had been placed
there in burial ; and they have been broken*
as is the case with the bones in the kitchen
middens of Europe, evidently to allow the
marrow, of which all Indians are very f(-nd,
to be extracted. On the whole, there can
be little doubt that the mound-makers were
cannibals, But as each Indian tribe lives in
a separate district, within which corno no
interlopers of any other tribe, and as the
tribal fieling is always very strong among
Indians, bo that they can not be buspccted of

feeding on individuals of their own tribe,
the mound' makers could only have obtained
human flesh for food in or from a foreign
country.

Again, the stone implements found in the
mounds seem to differ slightly from those
found strewn over the other parts of the
ground, which were presumably the property
of the natives of the country. The mound
implements seem to have been made by a
different people, and are, as a rule, of a
rougher, less-finished character.

That these stranger mound-makers came
from the sea seems probable from the
fact that they lived, at least during
their stay in those parts, largely on the
sea fish, of the remnants of which the
mounds are in great part formed. Of
all the mounds, that at Warramuri, which
is only two or three hours pull from
the mouth of the Moraca, is the only one
near the sea ; the others are at a considera-
ble distance, more or less great, up the
rivers. From the occurrence of the sea.
shells it is evidert that the mound-ma-
kers made frequent long journeys be^
tween the sea and the sites of their camps.
Now it is far more likely that strangers
making raids into the interior carried with
them large stores of sea- fish as food, than
that strangers making a raid toward the
sea from inland penetrated further than
was necessary through a hostile country,
merely to get a supply of seafish when
they had plenty of animal-food nearer
at hand ; and even if th^y had done so, they
would have devoured the sea fish near
the shore ratVer than have dragged it back
with them for so many miles.

For all these reasons, therefore, it seems
probable that the mounds were made by a
people hostile to the natives of the district,
and coming frc-m the sea. It now remains
to be shown that there were in all proba-
bility parties of Caril s from the islands.

In ihe first place all the mounds, with
the one exception already mentioned^ fire

9

in the very district of the mainland which
the island Caribs would and did most natu-
rally first reach. Moreover the moundw
apparently date from a time just about that
at which the Carib immigration took place.
Again there can be little doubt that the
Caribs were yet at that time cannibals,
while there is no ground for supposing that
any of the other tribes then and now inha-
biting the coast region of Guiana retained
that custom up to so recent a date.

That the Caribisi came from the islands
is shown by the close similarity in man-
ners, language and appearance ol Caribisi
of Guiana and the Caribs of the islands ;
and by the hostility towards the Caribisi
which to this day is the only feeling com-
mon to all the other tribes of the coun-
try. The records of the earlier voyages
in the Caribbean seas tell of the mi»
gration. In passing to the mainland in
their somewhit unseaworthy canoes they
would naturally land at the first point
reached. This would be the districB in
which the shell mounds occur. Moreover the
Caribisi tribe, the members of which are
the strongest and most energetic of
all the Indians of Guiana, is up to
quite recent times the only tribe which
held and holds no district peculiar to !
them. They arrived just at the time that
Europeans also made their way to the
mainland ; had it not been so, the Cari-
bisi would have cleared some special district
of its former inhabitants and would them-
selves have occupied this. As it was, over-
shadowed by the greater power of the white
man, they were unable to do this; and so to
this day, though some few families have
wandered southward, the greater part remain
thickly scattered among the tribes occupy-
ing the district in which they first landed,
and where their ancestors heaped up kitchen
middens.

Europeans first appeared in Guiana about
the end of the sixteenth century ; so that
the Caribisi immigration was in progress
about thre§ centuries ago. The sheU

mounds have every appearance of being
about that age. They are certainly little,
if any older ; and if they had been more
recent some record of their origin must have
remained.

Again it is almost an historical fact that
the Caribisi did not come once for all» in a
body, to the mainland and there remain ;
but that they were in the habit of passing to
and from the mainland in their raids from
the islands. It wa3 only gradually that they
settled permanently in Guiana. This would
satisfactorily account for the stratification of
the mounds. Each layer represents one
visit; and each time that the Caribisi visit-
ei the mainland they added a new layer.

That The Caribisi were cannibals, there is
little doubt. Travellers of those days were
all agreed as to this. Moreover all the other
tribes yet retain a tradition and dread of
the man-eating habits of the Caribisi and of
no other tribe. The Caribisi all deny
the fact when charged with it; bat they
do this with a superfluity of indignation
which is in itself suspicious.

Lastly in connection with this subject some
slight evidence is afforded by the fact that
the Caribisi, unlike the savannah Indians,
are in the habit of eating certain animals
which most Indians hold unclean and will
not touchi and that the remains of these
unclean animals are amongst the commonest
constituents of the mounds. In short,
there can bo little doubt that the mounds
were made by the Caribisi at the time when
they were passing from the islands, but had
nob yet permanently settled on the main
land.

Stone Implements.
Something has necessarily been said
of the stone implements which occur
within the shell mounds ; but besides
these many are found scattered through*
out the country on the surface of the
ground. It has already been stated
that these exposed instruments seem dis*
tinguishable from those from the shell
mounds, The difference is, however, more

10

in finisb than in form. The rudest
of the mound hatchets certainly belong
to the unpolish d stage ; while the most
highly finished of the hachets occurring
elsewhere than in shell mounds arc), almost
equally obviously, of the polished stage. As
a rule these highly polished axes seem to
occur outside the mounds, while the rude
forms seem to occur within the mounds. No
definite line can however ba drawn between
the two series-

In shape most of the axes correspond very
closely with European examples. Three
forms, however, claim special notice. The
first, which is perhaps the commonest form
of all, especially within the mounds, is some
what peculiar ; it has been well described as
like the section of a '* button " mushroom
which has been cut in half from the apex of
the cap down through the stem.* The
second is a very peculiar form which
I have seen in a single instance. This is
shaped almost exactly like the blade of a
modern hatchet. The shape together wiih
the high state of finish suggest that
this is comparatively of very recent origin,
probably since the arrival of white men. It
was dug up with a st' ne chisel and some
other articles on the East Coast. The third,
also occurring only in a single instance, is
strangely like a human foot with the leg
as far as the knee cap. Chisels and a few
implements the use of which is, not
at once apparent are not uncommon. No
instance of the occurrence of stone-airow
beads in the mounds is known to me ; but
some of the more remote Arecunas and
other Indians use such weapons even at the
present day.

Stone implements occur scattered over the
whole country. In one place, however, on
the Brazilian side of the Takutu, they occur
in large quantities, lying on the surface of
the ground. They are often picked up and

* 'Ibis form Bcems to correspond closely with the
«' hammer" represented on the left in Figure 11 (i o
eleven) of Wilson'ft " PrehiBtorio Man," (London,
1866)

Valued by the Indians cs tools for smoothing
their clay pottery. Three axes, evidently of
old date, have been brought to me, recently
fitted into wooden handles by Indians. These
three specimens are curious, as showing
the Indians' own ideas as to the way in
which ttieir ancestors fitted these axe heads
with handles.

One kind of stone utensil still in use in
the very remote parts of the country deserves
especial mention. This is the cooking slab
on which their flat cat-cake*like cassava
|3read is cooked. 4t the present time
most Indians use a circular iron girdle of
European manufacture for this purpose ; but
before thry were able to procure this,
they chose the flattest slabs of stone, gene*
rally sandstone, and baked their bread on
these. Even now the Arecunas near Roraima
— as probably also the yet more remote tribes
— who seldom or never visit town and who
live in a sandstone region, use these stone«
slabs. These are so highly valued that
it is difficult to persuade an Indian to
part with one. One in my possession is
a flat piece of sandstone about J of an
inch in thickness, oblong in shape, and
with the corners neatly cut off. It re
quires, as I have seen, a considerably longer
time to bake bread on these stones, than on
the iron-girdles.

Standing Stones.
The two traces of old Indian life which yet
remain to be mentioned are both given on the
authority of Mr. C. Barrington Brown. One
is a circle of standing stones. (Jf this Mr.
Brown says " In the Pacaraima mountains,
between the villages of Mora and Itabay, the
path passes through a circle of square stones
placed on one end, one of which has a cafv««
ing on it." In a note he adds that ''this
circle of stones is very like that on Stanton
Moor, shown in Ferguson's "Rude Stone
Monuments."

Sites of Ancient Villages.
Many examples of ancient village sites are
also mentioned by this same traveller. These

11

are said only to be d is tingui stable from the
surroundiog country by the rich black colour
of the soil and by the abundance of broken
fragments of pottery. Of course it is possible
that these sites are those of deserted villages
of comparatively, or even very, modern date.
But on the other hand, as all the repoited
examples occur far inland, and as the
inland tribes make but very little pottery, j
it IS more likely that such places were

the homes of tribes other than those
which now inhabit the surrounding country.
Only a very careful search in such places
can settle this question. And such a starch
would probably be rewarded by results of
extreme ethnological and archiological value.

EYERARD F. m THURN.
British Guiana Museum,
June 6th, 1879,

i

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'^.

PAMPHLET BINDER

ZZ^ Syracuse, N. Y.
~~~ Sfockfon, Calif.

3 9088 01029 9535

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